<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Support by Bead</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24597880">Support</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bead/pseuds/Bead'>Bead</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Bead's Original Poems &amp; Such. [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 07:27:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>907</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24597880</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bead/pseuds/Bead</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>That poem trying to get out was this one.  The one that was gone by the time I walked inside May 18, 2020.</p><p>Maybe where we were trying to get to was here in early spring. Before the skies turned darker...but I wasn't able to find the words until it did.  </p><p>And also to blame would be Hannah Gadsby, Van Gogh, and my neurological whatsis.  Because honestly, we opened up Netflix to escape a little and the promo of her new special came up and I looked at her and facepalmed my everything. (You won't get that unless you google it or watch the special but trust me. Watch. Nanette.)</p><p>Anyway, Hannah and Vincent guilted me into it, but in a good way. </p><p>This original work is not for reproduction elsewhere by anyone other than the writer herself and does not have written copyright permission.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Bead's Original Poems &amp; Such. [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1615810</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Support</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">I don’t think I will apologize, St. Teresa, to your or your sculptor because I think that’s…yeah…that’s…just about right.<br/>
<br/>
These days we have a shorthand, my beloved and I.<br/>
</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">My body jolts and fizzes and moves in unpredictable ways.<br/>
I fold up,<br/>
kick out,<br/>
shake,<br/>
pinball wildly,<br/>
and freeze into patterns that become familiar enough to have nicknames of their own but the worst…okay, for a variety of “worsts,” this my least favorite: The Silver Shiv. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"><br/>
It’s not really a shiv, because while it would logically need to be smaller and thinner, it<br/>
<em>f e e l s</em> like couldn’t possibly fit in my body.<br/>
It<br/>
<em>f e e l s</em><br/>
like an angry angel has thrust a longsword through me from a particular thoracic vertebra<br/>
right through my sternum and <em>up</em>.<br/>
</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">I so often imagine I see the bloodless shining silver just pointing up as I arch <em>hard</em>,<br/>
eyes blindly searching the heavens,<br/>
the ceiling,<br/>
or the underside of that table one time.<br/>
</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"><br/>
I arch, hard.<br/>
Arch like I’m about to sass my way through an Olympic floor routine.<br/>
Arch like Teresa of Avila, stuck and transfixed,<br/>
</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"><br/>
Because if the angel came at her like <em>this?</em><br/>
I am certain sure a shaky “Lord?”<br/>
Tore out her mouth like at the wintery bite of it like it did mine.<br/>
Overwhelmed tears springing to her eyes in confusion,<br/>
anticipation<br/>
of what already felt like dire punishment.<br/>
</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"><br/>
The Silver Shiv, the Angry Angel — all stained glass and as shining as his sword — paid us a visit under the fruit trees, as we were walking.<br/>
</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"><br/>
We’ve learned, my beloved and I<br/>
Created and practiced and honed<br/>
everything I can think of (everything)<br/>
to short quick orders and actions:<br/>
</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"><br/>
<em>Hold</em>: I need you to brace arms outstretched for me to get out of a chair or off the floor.<br/>
</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"><br/>
<em>Cherries</em>: Get the fabric case I have that matches the bag I got Kylie, bright with cherry blossoms, full of happy memories, marijuana tincture and lipstick. (Because <em>lipstick</em>.)<br/>
</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"><br/>
<em>Support</em>: We freeze in a strange tango hold, my body bowed back, his leg supporting my left femur which on any given day kicks and fizzles, tingles and flails and tells me it is made up of Red Vines and industrial-strength gummy worms.His hands support my arms as I fight to get my nervous system back under control.<br/>
</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"><br/>
This day, as I was pierced through and choked out, “Support,” </span>
  <span class="s1">I found myself gazing past silver to a sky of heart-stopping blue framing green leaves and apple blossoms.<br/>
</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"><br/>
It didn’t matter how rigid my body was. How much it hurt. How much my body was shaking. My beloved kept me safe because it lasted a long time…<br/>
</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"><br/>
…long enough to almost feel the internal <em>click</em> of a lock opening, a circuit finally connecting and….<br/>
</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"><br/>
every single thing (everysinglething) I’ve learned about art, poetry, religion, literature, pottery, history, theatre began an immediate<br/>
and flooding download,<br/>
my eyes<br/>
locked<br/>
on those white and green branches against the blue.<br/>
</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"><br/>
<em>Oh, Vincent.<br/>
</em> </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"><br/>
Shaking, I laughed: Wadsworth’s daffodils honoring our neighbor’s Buddha with their joyous dance was a clue in plain sight I’d walked right by.<br/>
<br/>
</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Tears gathered in my eyes and spilled down my cheeks. <em>I get it I get it, now I think I do oh thank you I get it. </em><br/>
</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"><br/>
Kylie’s cherries clutched tight added Whitman, and birthday twin Suzani who gave me the book beamed extra bubbles of laughter to the mix as we wobbled on our own <em>leaves</em> of <em>grass</em>.<br/>
<br/>
</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">I could vividly imagine the clouds of witnesses, the teachers and mentors who tried to gift me this once, the living artists teaching me, showing me every day, all y’all flailing an exasperated, affectionate, <em>“Finally.”<br/>
</em></span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"><br/>
“Sweet lovers love the spring/darling buds of may/rosemary/that’s for remembrance,” oh no not you too Will, plus….cherry-picking verses isn’t what we do here, out of context, I hate that, most especially when it’s the Bible…but y'all…<br/>
</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">I lifted my eyes unto the hills and from whence came my help but everything everyone taught me, from Mama and Daddy on up the chain of command and I do mean Up.<br/>
</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"><br/>
Maybe I’ve needed practice.<br/>
Looking up.<br/>
Really looking.<br/>
Really listening.<br/>
<br/>
</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Maybe I needed reminding all those artists I adore<br/>
All those mentors and family I’ve cherished<br/>
Past and present<br/>
have lived through the darkest<br/>
and coldest of winters<br/>
alone and isolated<br/>
mentally, physically or both<br/>
Dark, lonely, fearful months.<br/>
</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"><br/>
Spring this year was so tender and precious<br/>
(and tempting as a snake in an apple tree)<br/>
to all of us, as we started to crawl<br/>
in the most pained of steps, toward<br/>
the slightest glimpse of flowers and bright and green.<br/>
Toward what the next part of this new evolution of us.<br/>
</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"><br/>
I don’t pretend to be anything other than I am: flawed and trying.<br/>
</span>
</p><p>Of course, Vincent and artists immemorial flung outside and painted flowers,<br/>
wrote about flowers and abundance,<br/>
worked new life in the warp and weft and clay of their creations.<br/>
<br/>
Ran, ran, <em>ran</em>, to catch the dying, living light: shine up for us something we’ve seen a thousand times.</p><p>Of course, they rushed out to capture what they - and we -needed to see</p><p>and hear</p><p>and hold precious the most. </p><p>Apparently I was in the right place in the right time, because I saw what they saw.</p><p>Hope.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2">
  <a href="https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0176V1962?v=1">https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0176V1962?v=1</a>
</p><p class="p1"><br/>
<br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Fun fact,  Almond Blossoms was painted for the occasion of the birth of Van Gogh's nephew.  That just POPPED up in my research and smacked me about the face and I'm like I SAID I GOT IT, GEEZ.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>